Effect of confining stress and loading rate on fracture toughness of rocks

T.Y. Ko & J. Kemeny

Department of Mining and Geological Engineering, The University of Arizona, USA

ABSTRACT: In this research, the effect of confining stress and loading rate on the fracture toughness has
been investigated. The short beam compression test has been used to estimate the fracture toughness for
Flagstaff sandstone. A brief theoretical analysis of the effects of confining stress and loading rate the fracture
toughness is presented. This analysis considers changes to the critical fracture process zone size due to confining stress and loading rate. It is found that experimental results agree with the fracture mechanics theory.
The mode II fracture toughness is found to increase with increasing confining stress and increasing loading
rate.
1 INTRODUCTION
In linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), the
stress intensity factor K describes the magnitude of
stresses in the crack tip region, the size of the crack
tip plastic zone or fracture process zone and its
shape, and the strain energy for the crack propagation. Since it is able to correlate the crack propagation and fracture behavior, the stress intensity factor
is the most important parameter in LEFM. Cracks
will propagate when the stress intensity factor
reaches or exceeds a critical stress intensity factor,
Kc. The quantity Kc is termed the fracture toughness
and is considered to be a material property. Fracture
toughness is a quantitative expression of a material
resistance to failure when a crack is present. Some
particular applications for the fracture toughness of
rock are given as follows (ISRM 1988):
(i) a parameter for classification of rock materials.
(ii) an index of the fragmentation process
(iii) a material property in the modeling of rock
fragmentation.
According to the loading configurations, there are
three basic fracture modes of crack tip deformation,
i.e. Mode I (or opening mode), Mode II (or in-plane
shearing mode) and Mode III (or out-of-plane shearing mode). Corresponding to the three cracking
modes, there are three stress intensity factors known
as KI, KII and KIII. Also there are three fracture
toughnesses KIC, KIIC, and KIIIC corresponding to the
three cracking modes.
Mode II, shear failure is one of the major problems in rock mechanics and rock engineering since it

is usually associated with catastrophic failure of

geologic structures. One of difficulties in the shear
failure studies is producing pure shear failure in laboratory tests. Since most rocks are weaker in tension than compression, not only shear cracks but also tension cracks are produced under shear loading.
These tension cracks change the distribution of
stresses in the specimen, so the calculated KIIC may
be altered by these tension cracks.
In this research, short beam compression (SBC)
(Watkins & Liu 1985, Ko et al. 2006) test specimens
have been used to investigate the effect of confining
stress and loading rate on the Mode II fracture
toughness. For a specific slot separation ratio, the
SBC specimen gives almost pure shear failure, so it
is suitable for determining the Mode II fracture
toughness. In this paper, a theoretical analysis of the
effects of confining stress and loading rate on the
fracture toughness is first presented, followed by a
comparison with experimental results.
2 CRACK TIP PROCESS ZONE
2.1 The fracture process zone (FPZ) in rock
There must be a region near the crack tip where nonlinear material behavior is predominant. This behavior might be governed by elasto-plastic behavior or
micro-cracking. This region is called the plastic
zone in metals or the fracture process zone (FPZ) in
geological material such as rock. In rocks, FPZ is
due to the initiation and propagation of the microcracks around the crack tip. Hoagland et al. (1973)
give a schematic illustration of the four development

stages of the FPZ as shown in Figure 1. However,

there are no sound theoretical models to describe the
shape and size of FPZ and it is often explained using
the approximate model for the crack tip plastic zone
in metals (Whittaker et al. 1992).

3
cos 1 sin sin
2
2 r

2 2

xx =

KI

K II

3
sin 2 + cos cos
2
2
2 r


2

3
cos 1 + sin sin
2
2 r

2 2
K


3
+ II sin cos cos
2 r
2
2
2
KI

yy =

(1)

3
cos sin sin
2 r
2 2 2

xy =

KI

K II

3
cos 1 sin sin
2
2 r

2 2

zz = 0
zz = ( xx + yy )

for plane stress

for plane strain
yy

xy
xx
Figure 1. Schematic illustration of four development stages of
FPZ in rock. a) initially only a few pre-existing microcracks
are present. b) on loading the rock at a low level a few new
microcracks are produced. c)with further loading a large number of new microcracks are formed and the FPZ becomes fully
developed. d) finally the main crack is extended through the
linking the adjacent microcracks.

2.2 Stress components near the crack tip

For certain cracked configurations subjected to external forces, it is possible to derive closed-form expressions for the stresses in the body, assuming isotropic linear elastic material behavior. If we define a
polar coordinate axis with the origin at the crack tip
(Fig. 2), it can be shown that the stress field in any
linear elastic cracked body is given by (Anderson
1995):

crack
x
Figure 2. Definition of the coordinate axes ahead of a crack tip.

The principal stresses in the vicinity of a crack tip

can be obtained from the stress components given by
equation (1) as follows:

1 + sin

2
2
2 r
K
1

+ II sin +
1 + 3cos 2
2
2
2 r

KI

2 =
cos 1 sin
2
2
2 r
1 =

KI

cos

K II
1
2
sin 2 2 1 + 3cos
2 r

3 = 0
3 = ( 1 + 2 )

(2)
for plane stress

KI
K II

= 2
cos
sin for plane strain
2
2
2 r
2 r

2.3 FPZ size and shape

Schmidt (1980) proposed using the maximum normal stress criterion to show the shape and size of the
FPZ. When the local maximum principal stress
around the crack tip reaches the ultimate tensile
strength of the rock, an FPZ occurs. For this case,

the maximum normal stress criterion can be simply

stated as:

(3)

1 = t

where t is the tensile stress and tensile stresses are

taken as positive.
Combining Equations 3 and 2 and solving for r
under mode I loading gives:
2
1 KI 2

cos 1 + sin
2 t
2
2

1.5

r ( )

1 KI

2 t

0.5

(4)

and similarly solving for r under mode II loading

gives:

-0.5

r ( ) =

r ( ) =

1 K II
1

1 + 3cos 2

sin +
2 t
2 2

1 KI
2 t

-1

(5)

From Equations 4 and 5, it follows that the characteristic FPZ size when =0 is given by:
r (0) =

for mode I loading

(6)

-1.5
-2
-2

-1.5

-1

-0.5

0.5

1.5

Figure 3. Normalized FPZ shape for mode I loading. Both the

x and y axis are distance normalized by Equation 6.
1

and
1 K II
r (0) =
2 t

for mode II loading

(7)

The normalized shapes of the FPZ under modes I

and II loading are schematically illustrated in Figures 3 and 4.
Figure 3 shows that the shape of the FPZ in mode
I is symmetric about the x-axis. This follows from
the fact that for mode I the loading and also the
stress distribution is symmetric about the axis of the
crack. In the case of mode II, loading is asymmetrical about the x-axis, so the shape of the FPZ is
asymmetrical as well.
At the onset of crack propagation, K reaches KC
and r() attains a critical value, rc(), which is also a
material property.

-1

r ( )
-2

1 K II

2 t

-3
-4

-3

-2

-1

Figure 4. Normalized FPZ shape for mode II loading. Both the

x and y axis are distance normalized by Equation 7.

3 EFFECT OF CONFINING STRESS

Without invoking LEFM, it is reasonable to assume
that fracture toughness increases with increasing
confining stress. This follows since increasing the
confining stress causes the closure of pre-existing
microcracks, and reducing the microcrack density
increases rock strength. As shown in what follows, a
simple analysis based on the LEFM provides an analytical solution for the effect of confining stress on
fracture toughness.
Schmidt (1980) analyzed the effect of confining
stress on the shape and size of the FPZ. In the case
of mode I loading, adding a uniform confining stress
p to the crack tip principal stresses and it gives:

cos 1 + sin p
2
2
2 r
KI

2 =
cos 1 sin p
2
2
2 r

1 =

KI

(8)

Substituting Equation 8 into Equation 3 and solving

for r() gives the size of the FPZ as follows:
r ( ) =

1
2

KI

cos 1 + sin
p
2
2
+

(9)

K IC ( p)
t + p

(10)

or
K IC ( p ) = (1 +

) K IC (o)

where KIC(o) is KIC without confining stress and

KIC(p) is KIC with confining stress.
Similarly for the case of mode II,
K IIC ( p ) = (1 +

t
(MPa)
6.38

E (GPa)

()

c (MPa)

24.3

0.357

52.04

20.42

In order to maintain a constant value of rc() at the

moment of crack propagation, the ratio of KIC without confining stress to t must be equal to the ratio
of KIC with confining stress to t + p (Whittaker et
al. 1992).
Therefore confining stress and fracture toughness
should be related as follows:
K IC (o)

c
(MPa)
116.83

) K IIC (o)

5.1 Specimen geometry and loading

The test specimen has a length of W = 101.6mm (4
in), a width of L = 50.8mm (2 in) and a thickness of
B = 25.4 mm (1 in). Two equal and opposite preexisting slots, which have a depth of a = L/2, and
slot separation of c = 20.32mm (0.8 in), are cut perpendicular at the central part of specimen. An axial
compressive load was applied on the end surfaces of
the specimen. For the loading rate test, loading rates
ranging from 0.01 to 5 MPa/s were used. For the test
with a confining stress, lateral confinement was applied to the specimen from 1 to 10 MPa with the
loading rate of 0.1 MPa/s. The test specimen and
schematic illustration of the testing apparatus are illustrated in Figure 5.

(11)

4 EFFECT OF LOADING RATE

It has been frequently observed that the strength and
deformation properties of rock increase with increasing loading rate (Hudson & Harrison 1997).
Since fracture toughness is proportional to the
applied strength at failure, one can assume that fracture toughness also increases with increasing loading rate. This phenomenon also can be explained
with the LEFM concepts.
At a low loading rate, the FPZ develops due to
the subcritical crack growth and critical crack
growth under the the applied loading. But at a high
loading rate, the FPZ develops without significant
subcritical crack growth. A rock specimen must
have a constant critical FPZ size at failure, therefore
in the case of a high loading rate, it needs a higher
applied load. Consequently, a higher value of fracture toughness is measured.
5 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Flagstaff sandstone was used to measure the fracture
toughness. The mechanical properties are given in
Table 1.
Table 1. The mechanical properties of Flagstaff sandstone (c :
uniaxial compressive strength, t : tensile strength, E : Youngs
modulus, : Poissons ratio, : internal friction angle, c : cohesion).

Figure 5. Short beam compression test: a) specimen geometry;

b) testing apparatus.

Ko & Kemeny (2006) developed the stress intensity factor for the SBC specimen using finite element technique and is given as follows:
K II = (0.15 + 0.54

c P
)
a
W Bc

(12)

where P is the applied load.

5.2 Influence of confining stress on fracture
toughness
The average fracture toughness without confining
stress is 1.135 MPa m with a standard deviation of
0.178 MPa m . The variation of fracture toughness
for different confining stresses is presented in Figure
6. A total of 25 tests were conducted. An approximate empirical relationship between fracture toughness and confining stress can be expressed as:
K IIC ( p ) = (1 + 0.709 p ) K IIC (o )

(13)

The experimental results show a similar variation of

fracture toughness increase as that with Equation 11.

[MPa m]

10

0
0

10

Figure 6. The variation of the fracture toughness with respect

to the confining stress.

5.3 Influence of loading rate on fracture toughness

The experimental results are presented in Figure 7,
where fracture toughness is plotted as a function of
loading rate using a log-log scale. A total of 26 tests
were conducted, with about 3 tests conducted at
each loading rate. Even though there is a scatter in
the results, there is a definite trend of increasing
fracture toughness with increasing loading rate. The
solid line in Figure 7 shows the best-fit regression
line based on the log fracture toughness versus log
loading late data. This empirical relationship between fracture toughness and loading rate is given as
follows:
(14)

log K II = 0.05113 + 0.04555log &

The experimental results agree with the theory as

stated earlier.

Fracture toughness, KIIC [MPa m]

1.5

0.9

log K IIC = 0.05113 + 0.0455log&, R=0.84

0.8

0.7
0.0070.01

0.02 0.03 0.05

0.1

0.2 0.3

0.5 0.7 1

4 5 67

Loading rate [MPa/s]

Figure 7. The variation of the fracture toughness with respect

to the loading rate.

6 CONCLUSIONS
Fracture toughness is a quantitative expression of a
materials resistance to failure when a crack is
present and it is an important parameter in LEFM. In
this research, the effects of confining stress and
loading rate on the fracture toughness were investigated. The short beam compression test has been
used to estimate the fracture toughness for Flagstaff
sandstone.
A brief theoretical analysis of the effects of confining stress and loading rate on the fracture toughness has been presented. It has been found that experimental results agree with theory. The mode II
fracture toughness has been found to increase with
increasing confining stress and increasing loading
rate.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work supported by University of Arizona
NIOSH contract R01 OH007739.
REFERENCES
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ISRM 1988. Suggested methods for determining the fracture
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